Four years ago, Alicia Knight would have been the last person you could ever imagine home-schooling her kids.

She was a very active parent in the Stafford County, Va., public schools, where her son Roger was a fifth grader. She was a legislative aide to then Rep. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) for education issues. She was a card-carrying liberal who considered the conservative leaders of the Home School Legal Defense Association in nearby Loudoun County to be religious extremists with whom she could never see herself agreeing about anything.